It struck me as a practical and well reasoned analysis, and pretty much exposes the obvious: FAST DC charging up to 80% SoC is key, and then full battery range is the next most important characteristic.

The article does a very good job of assessing how the different EVs stand on the article's goals - an EV that can handle the traditional road trip as a true ICE replacement. This is a worthwhile goal to have EVs capable of fulfilling this role.

But the article does seem to deride those manufacturers who believe there is a market for commuting/city based cars. Ideally, manufacturers would pursue both options as different products will appeal to different customers - much like how each ICE manufacturer makes more than one model. This forum has plenty of pages debating the merits of the two approaches.

I don't think we should only pursue EVs that have 80+ KWh cars and super fast charging capability. Those will certainly cost much more than 30-60 KWh and be less efficient due to the increased weight. Having options is good as that should better increase EV adoption as different consumer niches can be attracted. However, we do need more manufacturers to provide truly viable road trip coverage. This article does well in pointing out that right now, only Tesla properly meets this role and we really need more than one choice.

Overall, this is a good article. They highlight how you would charge an EV during a road trip (i.e. only when you'd stop anyway), and mention that all EVs outshine ICEVs for trips within their single-charge range.

The whole discussion on HVAC usage applies only to summer. A/C usage in an ICEV is a killer to gas mileage, but in an EV hardly has a noticable effect. On the other hand, heat in an ICEV is almost free, but in an EV can cost you 30% or more depending on how cold it is outside. I don't think this fact should be just ignored, unless we want to have a whole bunch of irate new EV drivers every winter.

Also, on the analysis of charging speed of the Bolt, they use data from a 50kW charger. This artificially lowers the rate since the charger is the limiting factor at first and not the car. Granted, that's only a 15-20% hit, but it's not nothing.

Very good points, especially the note about the EVs being clearly superior when operating within single charge range.

Regarding the 50kw charger skewing the results, I believe it was perfectly fair. Road trip EVs are dependent upon the available charging infrastructure. They have to work with the equipment they encounter on their trip. If I understood the article correctly, they are using real world data so 50kw chargers must be a significant portion of the infrastructure that is in use. The article is attempting to assess current road-trip performance, not what might be the performance of the vehicle 5 or 10 years down the road when the infrastructure has upgraded to faster chargers being more readily available.

You got me thinking more on the fairness of the evaluation being dependent upon the available infrastructure. Absent this aspect, the FCV is the perfect road trip EV. They can go 300+/- miles on first charge and the subsequent charges to full are very fast - much faster than any competing EV could do and no need to stop at 80% charge. And since they are EVs, just not BEV, they still provide many of the benefits over an ICEV. The only reason they don't work is the lack of infrastructure. So the analysis really has to be based on both the car and how well it interacts with the existing infrastructure network that makes it a viable road trip vehicle.

Thinking about this, I guess there are really a number of different EV types. If we look at a vehicle as the propulsion mechanism, there are many more than just BEVs. The means in which the energy is stored/supplied to the vehicle would then define the type of EV.

BEV - Battery-Electric where propulsion is through EV and energy stored and supplied from a battery. This generally is the default when people say 'EV'. PHEV - A BEV that also has a gas hybrid engine, either that drives the car or simply runs an alternator and provides to the battery/motor.FCV - Fuel-Cell Vehicle where propulsion is same as BEV (IIUC) but energy stored as gas and supplied from a fuel cell that converts the gas to electricity when needed.Cable Cars/Subways - EVs where the energy is supplied via a defacto extension cord.Conveyor Belt Vehicles - I'm thinking ski lifts or the old 'People Mover' ride that used to be at Disneyland. While that was a neat concept from Tomorowland, that concept never took off - at least not that I'm aware of. WEV (theoretical/will probably never exist) - Wireless EVs, same as Cable Cars, except power would be provided along electrified roadways using an adapter similar to what Plugless is pitching except along roads instead of charging stations. The 710 freeway improvement project includes $200m to electrify it for these cars even though non are planned yet (that I'm aware of).BEV/WEV - Probably the real WEV concept. This type of EV is a BEV that has the Plugless or other type adapter that will allow additional charging when it happens to run on a electrified roadway, of which the 710 freeway may be the only one.

For consumers, only the first 3 are actually available. The last option is available through an aftermarket upgrade to existing BEVs by Plugless. But I don't know if that will do anything on an electrified roadway or if it only works when paired with their wireless charging spot. Unless there is an electrified roadway somewhere, I guess we will never know.

Fair enough point on the available infrastructure. Although there are now 150kW and 350kW chargers starting to appear. By the end of 2018, there will be a bunch of them, which could have been mentioned in the article. But as for what is available as of 6/10/18 (the date the article was published), I concede that the vast majority are 50kW (or less!)